


Costume Jewelry

by bexacaust



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23727667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexacaust/pseuds/bexacaust
Summary: Cut like a jewel, yeahI repair- myselfWhen you’re not there
Relationships: Jiraiya/Tsunade (Naruto)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. Coal, Diamonds, and the Crystals Inbetween

His survival was unprecedented- shocking from a medical standpoint, shocking from a religious one. But, somehow, blessed all the same. 

“You made me cry you know.”, she whispers as dusklight leaks in through a dusty window, “Nearly broke my… my heart." 

His face falls for a moment, and then the lines soften; grey eyes muted like spring rainclouds and his newly attached prosthetic arm gently wraps around her shoulders and pulls her against a strong heartbeat. A steady tempo, a heavy bass drum ever marching onward. "Can you ever forgive me?" 

Her tears come again, and this time she isn’t alone as her eyes close and the gloss on her lips smears as she presses her face against that terrifying, wonderful drumline behind his chest and she lets a soft sob into the air, feeling his shaky and healing hands card through her hair. 

"I never wanted you to cry again; please, please forgive me for causing you pain.”

She wants so desperately to be furious- to be enraged and to rend the very earth beneath them as she remembers…

Remembers as he was pulled free of uncaring waters, as she stood knee deep in frigid half-waves and praised whatever deity had smiled this time as she took note of the shock and cold and translucency of skin and almost wept there and then as she thanked God for the desperation of the human body hungering for survival.

As hours and days pass in a molten blur before her eyes and she works and works and prays for the first time since she doesn’t remember when.

And then his eyes opened, bleary from pain and sedation and her hands cramp and she swallows her tears like glass shards and orders him silent and still.

And now his arms- one warm one cool like graveyard stone- wrap tightly around her shoulders and he’s alive and real and breathing and she counts his heartbeats in ones and twos and fours and sixes and the makeup on her face smears on his clothes alongside her tears like warpaint in the rain.

“Strength unparalleled, strong too strong.”, he murmurs, his first free breaths as a living man again and he wastes them on praising her, she thinks, “Now is no time for carrying the world’s weight, Tsunade-”

“Fuck formailty.”, she hisses, pulling her face away and uncaring of the smears of mourning and relief, “No formailty between us anymore- I don’t care what you call me, anything but my damn name Jiraiya- I’ve shed too many tears for you, I’ve regretted too much for you to use my name.”

He looks at her, shocked and almost confused.

One of her hands cups his cheek, her thumb aligning the red line leading from his stormcloud eyes.

“I failed you once, I almost lost you- I refuse to just be Tsunade to you anymore, not when I’ve had your blood on my hands and known I always had the power to prevent it.”

He pauses… And then his eyes drift closed from his smile, from the warmth of her palm against his cheek.

“Tsu, then. Until I have more time to think of something sweeter.”

She narrowed still teary eyes, “…One? Is this some kind of pun…”

He laughs, belly-deep and bellowing and the sound is so comforting in this moment it burns her throat to not answer with one of her own. He brushes her hand away to cup her face in both of his and wipe away the tear-tracks before he kisses her forehead.

“Because you are the only one, Tsu-love; You’ve always been the only one. Even after all this time, even when you thought you were simply just another face, it’s always just been you.”

The tears start again, fresh and hot even as she lets a chuckle slip free and soon they’re both laughing, leaning and pressing close and letting hysteria and mourning burn away as the sun goes down with a wink and a smile of early-evening clouds on the horizon.

* * *


	2. Fool's Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s my Sun  
> He makes me Shine  
> Like D i a m o n d s

She wound salt-white locks around her fingers, swearing that they twitched in response even though he slept soundly- the rumble in his chest ominous and welcoming all at once.

She tugged, a half smile on her face, and he hummed in a sleepy response, the arm around her waist tightening slightly and his chest expanding with a deep inhale and slow exhale- his eyes never opened.

She felt warmth blossom in her chest, felt herself soften in a way she rarely allowed.

The edges of his eyes were damp.

A thick lock of his mane, call it what you will that’s what it was, still looped around her finger as she cupped his cheek and let her thumb brush away an already dried trail that hid in the red lines on his face.

One day he’d remember to scrub all the paint off before collapsing into bed. She couldn’t help the bitter smile on her face as she acknowledged the reasons he often forgot- for lack of a better term.

“Always prepared to leap to defense; some gallant hero in a novel no one remembers.”, she whispers.

“The fool in a court no one bothers to acknowledge anymore.”

She froze as he answers- as his eyes ease open and show tired stormcloud grey and the crystalline starlight of the beginnings of a fresh wave of tears. He turns his head away, she makes a sound of annoyance and tugs gently at the saltwhite lock around her finger before her hand returns to its position against his cheek.

“Jiraiya.”

Silence.

“…Love, for all you insist I don’t swallow my pain- why do you make yourself do it?”

“…Because.”

“Because why, Jiraiya.”

“…Because I am… I’m nothing like you, Tsunade.”, he says, softly, gently- the tone of someone long since resigned to a self-fulfilling prophecy, “I’m a failure- I’m a fool who trusts the wrong people and jumps in at the wrong moment; I proclaim myself the hero of the story only to find out I should have stayed the comic relief, I-”

Tsunade’s face fell with each word he whispered, like a confession, like a plea. All this time he carried these words next to his heart like mulberry thorns and hollybush barbs and still… Still he wiped her tears and pleaded for Orochimaru to come back to them.

Still he taught and laughed and wrote and joked and allowed himself to be the butt of every joke if it meant those around them would get a respite from the suffering so often in the air.

She gives a shake, letting his arm fall away from her waist as she sits up- her nightclothes loose and comfortable and almost like tucked back angel wings in the moonlight as she tugs at that snowshade lock of wild hair coiled carefully as new wool around her finger.

He grunts, clearly annoyed at being caught upset. She narrows her eyes, and tugs harder.

“I’ll yank it off, old toad.”

“Rude of you, slug queen.”

They kept their faces serious for only a moment before dissolving into tired chuckles as he followed her silent direction.

She hummed happily, guiding him to sit up so that she could ease behind him- nudge him forward, settle her legs and release his hair in favor of wrapping her arms around him and easing him back.

He settles against her, ear near her heartbeat and feeling her naturally warm hand smooth over his temple and stroke down over his hair.

“You don’t need to pretend around me, Jiraiya.”, she murmurs to him; feeling his hand move up to clutch carefully at her arm, “I don’t care what others have said, I stopped listening to them fifty years ago, clearly.”

A weak chuckle, throaty and shaking.

“There’s no… judge, or jury, here. Just me, love.”, she continues, “It’s just me.”

She feels him press against her plush chest, nuzzling towards her heartbeat even as she feels drops of heat from the newly freed tears of grief and insecurity.

“And I’ve already found you more than worthy of golden glory, in spades.”, her voice is a soft hum as the moonlight spills over rumpled sheets and their worn figures, “I’ve found you more than worthy of glory and praise and love and all those things you think these supposed failures have the right to deny you.”

He hiccups.

The sound is muffled and nearly unnoticable, but she sees the way long legs are drawn up and the way his good arm moves down to wrap tightly around her. 

She hums low in her throat, gently rocking him to and fro as he clung to her like a lifeline- years upon years of strength crumbling for the first time and she gritted her teeth in a surge of anger- at herself, at others, at some lost to time; for not seeing it sooner.

She tightened her embrace, leaned back slightly in a wordless demand for him to move closer, to curl tighter and bury his face against her smooth neck like she’d done to him so many times over so many decades.

She was fierce as she was lovely, steel wrapped within silk; gold in flake, mercury in the raw.

Beautiful and deadly for years upon years and tonight she left it at the door for the sake of a man she hadn’t realized she wanted to stay until he was almost forever gone.

“Sssssh, love…”, she murmured as he grieved silently.

“I’m here for you.”, she whispered, knowing those stormcloud eyes had stagnated into a mourning fog.

“Let the world turn without you tonight- I’ll keep you safe.”

His eyes drifted closed, damp and swollen, as he pressed against her so tight they almost blended together.

They fell back asleep, coiled together like mourning glory vines over an unmarked grave; her fingers tangled in a thick white mane and his head on her chest as the red lines beneath his eyes were dimmed and broken apart by dried tear tracks.


End file.
